One cannot resist the conclusion that the tale is, as already suggested, an imitation of the Marduk-Tiâmat episode. Allatu is a female like Tiâmat. Nergal acts for the gods just as Marduk does. The attendants of Nergal are suggested by the monsters accompanying Tiâmat; the tables of wisdom which Nergal receives, correspond to the tablets of fate which Marduk snatches from Kingu.[1213] But while the conflict between Marduk and Tiâmat is an intelligible nature-myth, symbolizing the annual rainstorms that sweep over Babylonia, there is no such interpretation possible in the contest between Nergal and Allatu. The story is not even a glorification of a local deity, for Nergal appears solely in the rôle of a solar deity. The attendants given to him—heat, lightning, and disease—are the popular traits in the story; but with the chief characters in the old nature-myth changed,—Marduk or the original Bel replaced by Nergal, and Tiâmat by Allatu,—the story loses its popular aspect, and becomes a medium for illustrating a doctrine of the schools. If this view of the tale be correct, we would incidentally have a proof (for which there is other evidence) that as early as the fifteenth century, the Marduk-Tiâmat story had already received a definite shape. But the most valuable conclusion to be drawn from the Nergal-Allatu tale is that, according to the popular conceptions, the real and older head of the pantheon of the lower world was a goddess, and not a god.
Allatu takes precedence of Nergal. In the story of Ishtar's descent to the lower world, a trace of the earlier view survives. Allatu is introduced as the ruler of the lower world. Nergal plays no part. Viewed in this light, the design of the tale we have just discussed becomes still more evident. It was inconsistent with the prominence assigned to male deities in the systematized pantheon, that the chief deity of the lower world should be a female. Allatu could not be set aside, for the belief in her power was too strongly imbedded in the popular mind; but a male consort could be given her who might rule with her. Another factor that may have entered into play in the adaptation of the Marduk-Tiâmat story to Nergal and Allatu, and that gave to the adaptation more plausibility, was the disappearance of the summer sun after he had done his work. Nergal did not exert his power during the whole year, and even as the sun of midday, he was not in control all day. When he disappeared, there was only one place to which he could go.
As of Tarmmuz and of other solar deities,[1214] it was probably related of Nergal, also, that he was carried to the lower world. This popular basis for the presence of Nergal in the lower world may have served as a point of departure for the scholastic development of Nergal. However, the tale of Nergal and Allatu goes far beyond the length of popular belief in making Nergal conquer Allatu, and force himself, in a measure, into her place. Before Nergal appears on the scene, a god, Ninazu, was regarded as the consort of Allatu.[1215]
The conception which gives the Babylonian Hades a queen as ruler is of popular origin, in contrast to the scholastic aspect of Nergal as the later king of the lower region. Jensen is of the opinion that the feminine gender of the word for earth in Babylonian superinduced the belief that the ruler of the kingdom situated within the earth was a woman. Allatu would, according to this view, be a personification of the 'earth.' But a factor that also enters into play is the notion of productivity and fertility which gave rise to the conception of the great mother-goddess, Ishtar.[1216] Allatu is correlated to Ishtar. From the earth comes vegetation. The origin of mankind, too, is traced to the earth, and to the earth mankind ultimately returns.[1217] Hence, the receiver of life is a goddess equally with the giver of life, and indeed, Ishtar and Allatu are but the two aspects of one and the same phenomenon.[1218] Allatu signifies 'strength.' The name is related to the Arabic Allah and the Hebrew Eloah and Elohim. The same meaning—strength, power, rule—attaches to many of the names of the gods of the Semites: Adôn, Etana, Baal, El, and the like.[1219] It is interesting to note that the chief goddess of Arabia is Allat[1220]—a name identical with our Allatu.
The bronze relief above described furnished us with a picture of this queen of the lower world. The gloom enveloping the region controls this picture. Allatu is of as forbidding an aspect as Tiâmat. She is warlike and ferocious. When enraged, her anger knows no bounds. Her chief attendants are the terrible Namtar and a scribe—also a female—known as Belit-seri. Of these two personages, Namtar, the personification of disease, is a popular conception, whereas the addition of a scribe points again to the influence of the schools. Marduk, the chief god of the living, has a scribe who writes down, at the god's dictation, the fate decreed for individuals. Corresponding to this, the ruler of the lower world has a scribe who writes down on the tablets of wisdom the decrees of the goddess, and, at a later stage, the decrees of Nergal as well. Belit-seri, whose name signifies 'mistress of the field,' was originally a goddess of vegetation, some local deity who has been reduced to the rank of an attendant upon a greater one; and it is significant that almost all the members of the nether-world pantheon are in some way connected with vegetation.
Tammuz, of whose position in this pantheon we have already had occasion to speak, is the god of spring vegetation. Another solar deity, Nin-gishzida,[1221] who is associated in the Adapa legend with Tammuz, is the deity who presides over the growth of trees. En-meshara, who also belongs to the court of Nergal and Allatu, appears to represent vegetation in general. To these may be added Girra (or Gira), who originally, as it would appear, a god of vegetation, is eventually identified with Dibbarra,[1222] Gil, whom Jensen[1223] regards as 'the god of foliage,' and Belili, the sister of Tammuz.[1224] Of this group of deities, Tammuz and Nin-gishzida are the most important. In the Adapa legend, it will be recalled, they are stationed as guardians in heaven. As solar deities, they properly belong there. Like Nergal, they have been transferred to the nether world; and in the case of all three, the process that led to the change appears to have been the same. The trees blossom, bear fruit, and then decay; the fields are clothed in glory, and then shorn of their strength. The decay of vegetation was popularly figured as due to the weakness[1225] of the god who produced the fertility. Tammuz has been deceived by Ishtar; Nin-gishzida has been carried off to the lower world. In the month of Tebet,—the tenth month,—there was celebrated a festival of mourning for the lost En-meshara. It is the time of the winter solstice. A similar fate must have overtaken Belit-seri, Girra, and Gil. For a time, at least, they are hidden in the realm of Allatu. Of all these deities, stories were no doubt current that formed so many variations of one and the same theme, symbolizing their disappearance and the hoped-for return, the same story that we encounter in the myth of Venus and Adonis, in the myth of Osiris, and, in some guise or other, among many other nations of the ancient world. Of Girra, it may be well to remember that he is viewed merely as a form of Nergal in the later texts. Belili, it will be recalled, is associated with Tammuz in the story of Ishtar's journey.[1226] She is not, however, the consort of the god, but his sister. The antiquity of her cult follows from the occurrence of her name in the list of gods antecedent to Anu,[1227] and where Alala is entered as her consort. Whatever else the relationship of 'sister' to Tammuz means, it certainly indicates that Belili belongs to the deities of vegetation, and it may be that she will turn out to be identical with Belit-seri, which is merely the designation of some goddess, and not a real name.[1228] One is inclined also to suspect some, albeit remote, connection between Alala, the consort of Belili, and the Alallu bird who is spoken of in the Gilgamesh epic as having been deprived of her pinions by Ishtar.[1229] In the tale, Tammuz, the Alallu bird, a lion, and a horse are successively introduced as those once loved and then deceived by Ishtar. The lion is, as has been several times indicated, the symbol of Nergal; the horse appears in the Hades relief above described as the animal upon which Allatu is seated, and it seems legitimate, therefore, to seek for Alallu also in the nether world. While it may be that a long process intervened, before such a species of symbolization was brought about as the representation of an ancient deity in the guise of a bird, still, if it will be recalled that Zu is a deity, pictured as a bird,[1230] there is every reason to interpret the bird Alallu merely as the symbol of some deity, just as the lion is certainly such a symbol.
Jensen would add Etana to the list of gods of vegetation who form part of Allatu's court. While the etymology he proposes for the name is not acceptable, there is no doubt that to Etana, like Gilgamesh, the character of a solar deity has been imparted. His presence in the nether world is due to the story of his flight with the eagle and the fall.[1231] If he falls from heaven, he naturally enters the realm of Allatu, and it is possible that the story in its original form was suggested by a myth illustrating the change of seasons. The question, however, must for the present remain an open one.
A god associated with the nether world who again appears to be a solar deity is Nin-azu. His name points to his being 'the god of healing.' A text states[1232] that Allatu is his consort. Such a relationship to the chief goddess of the nether world may be regarded as a survival of the period when Nergal had not yet been assigned to this place. The introduction of a distinctly beneficent god into the pantheon of the lower world, and as second in rank, shows also that the gloomy conception of the lower world was one that developed gradually. Tammuz, Nin-gishzida, and the like are held enthralled by Allatu, and remain in the nether world against their will; but if Allatu chooses as her consort a 'god of healing,' she must have been viewed as a goddess who could at times, at least, be actuated by kindly motives. The phase of the sun symbolized by Nin-azu is, as in the case of Tammuz and others, the sun of the springtime and of the morning. If it be recalled that Gula, the great goddess of healing, is the consort of Ninib,[1233] it will be clear that Nin-azu must be closely related to Ninib—and is, indeed, identified with the latter.[1234] With Nergal in control, Nin-azu had to yield his privilege to be the husband of Allatu. The substitute of the fierce sun of the summer solstice for the sun of spring is a most interesting symptom of the direction taken by the Babylonian beliefs, regarding the fate of the dead. It may be that in the earlier period, when more optimistic views of Aralû were current, Gula, who is called the one 'who restores the dead to life,' may have had a place in the pantheon of the lower world; not that the Babylonians at any time believed in the return of the dead, but because the living could be saved from the clutches of death. Ninib and Gula, as gods of spring, furnished the spectacle of such a miracle in the return of vegetation. In this sense, we have seen that Marduk, the god of spring, was also addressed as 'the restorer to life.' But while the revivification of nature controls the conception of gods of healing, like Nin-azu, Ninib, and Gula, the extension of the idea would lead, naturally, to the association of these gods with the ruler of the nether world, at a time when it was still believed that this ruler could be moved by appeals to loosen her hold upon those whom she was about to drag to her kingdom. But it is important always to bear in mind that beyond this apparent restoration of the dead to life, the Babylonians at no time went.
In the Ishtar story[1235] a god Irkalla is introduced. Jeremias[1236] takes this as one of the names of Allatu, but this is unlikely.[1237] From other sources[1238] we know that Irkalla is one of the names of the nether world. It is in some way connected with Urugal,[1239] i.e., 'great city,' which is also a common designation for the dwelling-place of the dead. Hence, Irkalla is an epithet describing a deity as 'the god of the great city.' The Babylonian scholars, who were fond of plays upon words, brought the name Nergal, as though compounded of Ne-uru-gal (i.e., 'ruler of the great city'), into connection with Uru-gal, and thus identified Irkalla with Nergal. But, originally, some other god must have been meant, since Allatu appears as the sole ruler of the lower world in the Ishtar story, unless, indeed, we are to assume that the name has been introduced at a late period as a concession to Nergal. It is more plausible that a god like Nin-azu was understood under 'the god of the great city.' Besides these gods, there is another series of beings who belong to Allatu's court,—the demons who are directly responsible for death in the world. Of this series, Namtar is the chief and the representative. As the one who gathers in the living to the dark abode, it is natural that he should be pictured as guardian at the gates of the great palace of Allatu. But by the side of Namtar stand a large number of demons, whose task is similar to that of their chief. A text[1240] calls the entire group of demons,—the demon of wasting disease, the demon of fever, the demon of erysipelas,[1241] and the like,—'the offspring of Aralû,' 'the sons and messengers of Namtar, the bearers of destruction for Allatu.' These demons are sent out from Aralû to plague the living, but once they have brought their victims to Aralû, their task is done. They do not trouble the dead. The latter stand, as we have seen, under the direct control of the gods.[1242]
The story of Ishtar's descent to the lower world[1243] shows us that the group of spirits known as the Anunnaki, also, belong to the court of Nergal and Allatu. Ramman-nirari I. already designates the Anunnaki as belonging to the earth,[1244] though it is an indication of the vagueness of the notions connected with the group that in hymns, both the Anunnaki and the Igigi are designated as offspring of Anu,—the god of heaven.[1245] They are not exclusively at the service of Nergal and Allatu. Bel, Ninib, Marduk, and Ishtar also send them out on missions. Evidently, the fact that their chief function was to injure mankind suggested the doctrine which gave them a place in the lower world with the demons. The distinction between Anunnaki and the Igigi is not sharply maintained in the religious literature. Though Ramman-nirari places the Igigi in heaven, it is not impossible that a later view transferred them, like the Anunnaki, to the lower world. There were, of course, some misfortunes that were sent against mankind from on high—Ramman was a god who required such messengers as the Igigi, and besides the Igigi, there were other spirits sent out from above. But, as in the course of time the general doctrine was developed which made the gods, on the whole, favorably inclined towards man, while the evil was ascribed to the demons[1246]—as occupying the lower rank of divine beings—we note the tendency also to ascribe the ills that humanity is heir to, to the forces that dwell under the earth,—to Nergal and Allatu and to those who did their bidding. Probably, Lakhmu and Lakhamu were also regarded, at least by the theologians, as part of Allatu's court, just as Alala and Belili[1247] were so regarded.